[prox]

Well, I can understand the position of long time gimp users, but ultimately you have to move on to better paradigms and years of UX research. If you match it with a legacy mode, things can be a smooth transition.

In that time I used GIMP a lot and was a good moderate level user probably, but the interface kept getting in my way (unlike Photoshop were I was able to reach almost a flow state of doing things at that time)

Eventually I just moved on, but I can’t fully shake the feeling that GIMP could have been so much more. Godot and Blender which others mentioned just have done so much better in that regard. Blender had the suckiest of UX/UI but even in the face of much/some “old timer” resistance they made something that most hail as a success now.

[zeruch]

Blender has indeed been a much more "slow overnight success" than I suspect GIMP will ever be, and that's unfortunate, because its not like GIMP is lacking in the potential.